Don’t have anything beautiful left in your brain? Do you have a mind that feels discouraged, broken, and bankrupt? Come to the Lord! Come to the feast of His Word! He wants to fill you up and make you whole again! He so lovingly and excitedly bestows His wholeness into our account!
We do not deserve it, but Jesus paid for it. He bought the luxury of us having “sound minds” with His precious blood! Because of what Jesus bought and paid for, we can stand up in our royal authority and say, “No!” to the enemy, “I will not listen to your discouragement and your lies. I will not allow you to steal my joy, my love, my power, and my sound mind! I belong to the King of kings and Lord of lords! The Mighty One who breathed out the stars is on my side! He will fight for me and defend me. He is my Savior, and He will help me catch and report the thief, destroying the works of the devil. I can and will renew my mind by the power of His Word, and I will walk in the fullness of everything that God has for me.”
OUR SOULS AND SPIRITS
We live in a world where we’re encouraged to focus on the external. We focus on dates and deadlines and To-Do lists and accomplishments; and while we’re running around in this rat-race, sometimes it’s easy to forget what truly matters. Do we neglect the health and nurturing of our souls and spirits, sacrificing ourselves on the altar of busyness?
Please don’t allow yourself to feel condemned. The purpose of this article is not to beat you up and make you feel terrible about the fact that you have piles of homework, responsibilities at your job, important ministry commitments, and a crazy social schedule. I simply want to encourage you to stop and think.
Think about your purpose. Think about why you’re breathing. Think about your relationship with Christ, and how much time you’re actually spending with Him. Your soul is like a plant that desperately needs the Water of God’s Word. Our Spirits must be daily revived in God’s presence, or else we find ourselves slowly withering away. With such massive To-Do Lists and potent priorities, it’s so easy to place ourselves and our own self-care on the back burner. I often refer to “The Garden of my Heart.” How is yours looking? Have you been taking the time to walk in the garden of your heart with the Master Gardener and tend to the seeds of His Word? Or have you been so focused on everything external and everything seen that is temporary that you’ve forgotten all about nurturing and developing the only thing that truly matters? The garden of our hearts?
God never intended for us to beautify and bless the world at the expense of our own hearts drying up. Have you been neglecting the garden of your relationship with Christ? Do you feel broken, tried, irritated, jealous, bitter, or exhausted?
God desires to heal your brokenness. With each new day, we come in contact with this messed up world, it can leave us feeling discouraged, damaged or deceived. That is why we must fight through the drought called ‘busyness’ and find quiet time for our souls to rest in the rain.
“But you don’t understand!” I can hear you fiercely protesting, “My schedule is so overwhelming right now that I truly don’t have time to set aside for God. I mean, I can sneak in 5 minutes of prayer and Bible reading here and there, but I just can’t afford to cut anything else from my schedule.”
I hear you. But is it possible, that if you are truly this busy, something might be wrong? Has God told you to sign up for all these activities, volunteer at all these ministries, and attend every school football game with your friends? If the thought of cutting something out of your schedule in order to spend more time with the Lord, and giving yourself more soul rest, makes you feel
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